Cape Breton based bluesman/ folk musician Matt Andersen spends most of his year on the road, so it makes sense that his latest CD, “Coal Mining Blues,” would have a lot of songs about missing home.
“I play about 200 shows a year, so there is a lot about missing home. A lot of it is about growing up on Cape Breton and the coal miners and their lives,” Andersen he said add
ing he took four or five days off to take a quick breather to record the new CD in Levon Helm’s studio in Woodstock, New York, back in January.
He will be coming back to Lethbridge, Oct. 11 to play the Geomatic Attic.
“It will just be me and my guitar,” he said, adding it has been five or six years since he last played Lethbridge at the Slice.
So he will be playing music from the past two solo CDs he has released since then as well as plenty from the new CD.
Toronto über-producer Colin Linden was on board for “Coal Mining Blues,” and added some of his inimitable guitar work to it.
“He’s been on the top of my wish list for producers for a while,” he said.
And while Helm doesn’t appear on the album, his “Band”-mate Garth Hudson is.
“He plays accordion on a couple songs. He’s a totally humble guy, worked side by side with everybody else,” he continued.
“It has got some really great response. There’s a lot of good people involved with it,” he said, adding even major record stores have given it prominent placement.
This winter he is going back to the Carribean to play the blues cruise for much of thw winter with luminaries like Taj Mahal.
Tickets for the show cost $32.50 . The show begins at 8 p.m.